Resurrection in the park.

I tell Boy Son that they’re simply called “Trees” knowing that greater men have walked this path and reeled off names like Almus Hybrid and Snowdrop and Flatspine Prickly*. I bet they had excellent posture and puffed on pipes whilst quoting Kipling. The leaves however, they’re just leaves & I take comfort in knowing that any man who deviated from this easiest of descriptions must’ve been an absolute wibberwasher**.  We push on. The yelling and thrilling of molly coddled children plays softly in the foreground as my boots squelch to the rhythm of avoiding puddles. I’m the forgotten warrior of the park, the man whose DNA once punched out a Yak but I’ve boiled down to sipping lattes whilst side stepping my own reflection. My DNA’s latest resurrection is having none of this and decides to chant at the nameless trees, throwing dirt into their face before running around each one, three times apiece. I secretly hope this crowd gathering ritual will unlock a tree Genie who’s been waiting for this exact pattern to unfold. ‘Finally I’m free! Thank you little boy. I thought the spell was broken last week but the little fucker only ran around twice… Not to worry, I’m yours forever. Lets grab dad and head to India. I’ve got a score to settle. To the spices!’ I squinted my eyes and crossed my fingers, hoping against hope that the oncoming floppy eared fuzz ball was in fact Mr Tree Genie himself. This was stupid and I had to unpack my mind bags. India would have to wait. Embarrassingly the futility of my squinting was highlighted by the sound of steamed up piss falling on my pram. But oh how we all laughed… ‘The dog pissed on the man’s pram… the inappropriateness of it all, that’s what makes it so amusing. Wibber, wibber wibber.’ I shot them all with my mind vibes and they vaporised into the kind of dust that only gathers onto broken dreams. Suckers. I sipped my latte and pushed on.

Boy Son opened the gate and stood mesmerised as fragments of the future ran around shooting each other with sticks. I laughed at the realities of playground war; A twenty second ban if you’re wounded, thirty if you die, forty if you die near family. These rules played underneath a far more depressing conversation, ‘Darling not too close to the edge you might fall.’ My parents would introduce me to the weekend by firing me out of a cannon with half an apple and a slap on the arse yet still, I’m a pale reflection of a Yak Puncher. Today’s darlings are shot well before they can strap on their boots.

Up he climbed and down he slid for long enough so that I might be considered a decent father. It’s 12 parts love and adoration, 3 parts stifling boredom and 6 parts hiding the 3 parts. Today I did it well. Tomorrow I don’t know? He may want details.

*Derived solely from Google; may not be the trees in my park.

** Wibberwashers are jowly grown ups possessing no sense of humour and often they sound like overly serious washing machines. 

So let me tell you about my week…

Context: When your wife is pregnant, as mine recently was, you lose testosterone so that you don’t beat her*. This may be controversial and I have no science to back it up but I have mentioned it at barbecues and it seems to hold up around salad. My testosterone is now bouncing back. But due to Lady Wife’s unfortunate C Section I’m house bound until she is strong enough to lift more than a baby.  Also, to add spice, I’ve spent the last 9 months trying to find the perfect segue between what my wife is talking about and convincing her to touch my penis. 

 I’m walking up the road on my way to buy cupcakes and my inner monologue is furious. ‘Cupcakes! Cupcakes!  I must be the only inner monologue bitching about cupcakes. ’ And so it went.  Meanwhile Lady Wife was talking about curtains. Not meanwhile back at home meanwhile, but rather, meanwhile by my side meanwhile. In context to banter about curtains, this is the worst kind of meanwhile.  (Curtains. Curtain rod. Emphasise rod and then look at your penis.  Avoid eye roll. Repeat.) The cherry: I’m pushing a pram with two kids in it. The kids are mine, they’re both under two and they’re just screaming ‘Be responsible dad! It’s embarrassing that you only have £13.25 in your bank account. Stop thumbing your cock during the day and get out there and bring home a slice of normal, at least until we get blinds. Step up and be a man dad.’ I love them but they’re little psychological bandits who know how to push my buttons.

I’m in the boutique cupcake shop, we’re buying some for the neighbours who helped with Boy Son during the birth of Only Daughter.  Just as we balance affordability with quality, in walks a guy ten years buffer than me, he’s holding a knife and he’s not happy about a previous cupcake sale. Finally I get a turn to shine. I take thirty-five years of anger and fear and crush this man with nothing but mind vibes. Mel Gibson in his hey day couldn’t beat my stare. Even as Riggs in Lethal weapon 1. My kids love me again, my posture improves, the cupcake lady dies because my vibes are new and need refining but no one cares because she died doing what she loved, combusting. As for Lady Wife, she tells me to snap out of it and open the door as ‘we have the cupcakes now Adam.’ Oh do we? Because from where I’m standing, we are a long way from cupcakes. ‘That doesn’t even make sense’ I know but this testosterone has got to go somewhere.’

And that was my week. No happy ending, not even a plot, just a man plugging along using his imagination to anesthetise the growing pains of responsibility. 

* Not so much her but the infiltrating demon that she never told you about.

1996

I wrote my first page of jokes when I was aged somewhere between eight and ten. I remember the moment I showed them to my Dad, who was paving the driveway at the time. He looked at the my efforts, smiled and then carried on lifting bricks. I’ve been needy ever since. Fast forward between nine and eleven years, and I’m walking up my local hill. The sun was setting, the air was warm and a man sporting loose pants, a tight T and a decent dose of Down’s Syndrome was heading in my direction. As my shadow lapped at his Volley’s he smiled and said, ‘It’s 1996 mate, it’s 1996.’ He repeated it three or four times and then carried on with his life. Now, when you grow up in the outer suburbs of Adelaide and an angel comes drifting down your local hill sprouting wisdom, you take notice. After our paths had crossed and my message had been received I remember thinking, ‘Yeah it is 1996. I should do something with my life.’ I’m not making this up. A lot of people get into comedy because they heard Bill Cosby on vinyl, or because they saw The Big Yin on television. Me, I got caught in the headlights of the ultimate truth and rarely do I look back. Clearly I had an interest in comedy but if I hadn’t met “1996” (I never got his name so I went with what I had) I may well be the slow guy on the Mitsubishi line. Happy and content? Maybe. But always wondering ‘what if?’. 1996 gave me courage. Don’t get me wrong, there have been times when I’ve wanted to punch him square in the nose, ‘I’m broke 1996! Broke and self involved! Why didn’t you tell me to be a Doctor? I could’ve been saving lives. I’d still be the funny guy at the barbecue. That’s all I need. A bit of attention and a side of coleslaw. Why 1996? Why?’ But 1996 wouldn’t have cared for troubles like these, instead he would’ve smiled at me and said, ‘It’s 2004 mate. It’s 2004.’ That’s the kind of guy he was and I miss him. 

My point is I’m just like you. I have thoughts and they are funny and poignant and surreal and serious and callous, sometimes even cold. My only hope is that when you see me I’m entertaining and that maybe, like 1996 did for me,  I inspire you in some way, shape or form to have the courage to do what ever it is that you want to do.